In case you didn’t know (and you sure as hell wouldn’t from reading this blog) a little over a month ago I started contributing to Joe Sports Fan: an online publication that celebrates the absurdity of professional sports.

The column above is about Los Angeles Clippers rookie Blake Griffin and his super-human ability to leap small, sporty sedans in a single bound, which he demonstrated at the NBA’s All-Star Slam Dunk Contest last weekend.

And if none of this is enough to entice you, there’s a lot of wild and – dare I say – crazy pictures, including one of a giraffe. Enjoy.

At the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest, Los Angeles Clippers rookie Blake Griffin elevated himself over a car, and in the process, some say he elevated the exhibition to new heights.

ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger was so inspired by Griffin’s dunk over the hood of a Kia Optima, he wrote that it helped save the event, and did so without featuring “the same dunks embellished only by increasingly hokey pranks” or “bizarre, attention-seeking props.”

Wait a minute. A car isn’t a prop? Sans the Kia, wouldn’t the dunk have been…hokey?

Hollinger did hit on one truism: The slam dunk contest is all about entertainment. Every year, players try to one-up what the last guy did. And now that bizarre, attention-seeking props–unlike in stand-up–are officially in vogue in the NBA, it gets me thinking: What kind of dunks can we expect in the future?

Following the contest, LeBron James gave us a peak at what lies ahead. LeBron said he could have beaten Griffin by dunking over a giraffe.

Yawn. Is that really better than a car? A giraffe is a gentle, timid creature–nature’s pushover.
Ever see a giraffe pick a fight with a rhinoceros? Me neither. No, we need something a little more dangerous like…

Fighting lions! Much better. Slamming a basketball over two man-eating, bloodthirsty beasts locked in struggle beats a stupid giraffe any day.

Mother Nature herself would also make for an interesting prop. After all, no one has ever attempted to throw the hammer down on a natural disaster before.

A dunk of this caliber would certainly impress the judges, but if I’m Clippers head coach Vinny Del Negro, I don’t want my star rookie dunking over an exploding pool of molten lava. What if he burned his elbow on a hot piece of ash? (Coincidentally, I just like saying, “hot piece of ash.”)

At this point, I’m not sure where else future dunkers can take it, unless they forgo the bounds of reality. Perhaps Hollywood should get involved, specifically George Lucas.###MORE###

This next one I call “Jock Jam”. It’s accompanied by loud, annoying music that was popular 20 years ago, and it makes you simultaneously want to stab your ears with a plastic fork and stand up and cheer.

Hmm…that might border on the bizarre. Let’s just stick to dunking over a Car.

See, I think Mr. Hollinger has it wrong. Bizarre, attention-seeking props, when used wisely, make everything better.

Be sure to turn up the speakers on your computer because several of the staff members here at Grubb Hub lended their voices to the game. See if you can guess which ones.

You can win lots of prizes by playing, most of which involve pizza, none of which involve extra butter. But everyone that registers an account at papajohns.com is eligible to win a free pizza if the Super Bowl goes into overtime.

A group of Chicago Bears fans have announced plans to detonate the knee of quarterback Jay Cutler during an upcoming charity event. This comes in the wake of the recent debacle that unfolded in the NFC Championship game, which saw the Bears lose to hated rival Green Bay and Cutler leave the game due to what many thought was a questionable injury.

All proceeds from the event–to be held February 26 at Mike Ditka’s restaurant in downtown Chicago–will go to benefit No Limb-Its, a local charity that supports those who have lost arms and legs in unexplained fireworks accidents. In order to give potential donors an idea of what to expect, the group released this photo depicting the fate awaiting Cutler’s left knee:

According to Steve Kowalski, a member of the group organizing the event, the main purpose of exploding of Cutler’s knee is to rid the Bears of any potential curse that might be lingering as a result of NFC Championship loss.

“I know I’ll sleep easier at night knowing we blew up his knee,” said Kowalski. “Better to be safe than sorry, you know?”

Another organizer, Bob Kowalczyk, said the public detonation presents an opportunity for Cutler to prove his toughness to Bears fans, which was thrown into question after he left in the second half of the NFC Championship with a Grade II MCL sprain, essentially the same as an MCL tear.

“This way, the knee will be sufficiently injured to every Bears fan’s satisfaction,” Kowalczyk went on to say. “Nobody in their right mind would ever question the toughness of someone coming back from their knee being exploded by dynamite.”

However, Hall of Fame defensive end Jack Youngblood remained unimpressed. Appearing on a nationally syndicated sports radio show, Youngblood said he played the entire second half of the 1976 season on an exploded knee, including the playoffs. According to Youngblood, he received a cortisone injection prior to each game, and also used a brace.

When approached by reporters this week, Cutler seemed indifferent to the idea of having his knee blown up.

“If it helps my team win, I’ll do it,” Cutler said while staring at a discoloration in the floor. “I mean, whatever. I don’t really care. I’m just looking forward to next season, I guess.”

The publicity stunt is eerily reminiscent of what happened to the infamous Steve Bartman ball in February of 2004, when it was obliterated on live television at Harry Caray’s restaurant in downtown Chicago following the Cubs loss in the NLCS:

At the time, the Bartman ball incident was the most recent in a long line of such incidents cited by Cubs fans as to why the team has not won a World Series since 1908. In fact, it quickly became the most notorious of these incidents, surpassing that of extremely terrible baseball at inopportune moments.

The Bears have experienced a championship drought of their own, not having won a Super Bowl since the 1985 season.